Charged - Book One Read online

  “Do you really think they’ll show up in the middle of the day?” Collin said.

  “They think we’re harmless and they do not care,” Danel answered.

  Aaron reached toward the creature to touch it and its body reflected a perfect image of Aaron’s hand when he was about five inches away. As Aaron pulled his hand back, the reflection of his hand faded slowly and he stood back for a second.

  “Camouflage,” he said.

  “Yes. It reflects its surroundings dead or alive, but when they’re alive, the whole outer shell is like a mirror,” Collin said.

  “Can it reflect images other than its surroundings?” Aaron said.

  “Not that we’ve observed, but it could be possible.”

  Its head, or what was left of it, was a tiny diamond shape. Its mouth hung open, full of hundreds of what looked like little metal hooks. No tongue. Its arms were almost as long as its body and hung down to the floor next to the table. Each arm slid down into massive hooked hands. It had two grooves running down its skull, which conjoined at what I thought was its chin. No ears, no eyes, no feet. It didn’t stand like us. Its feet also slimmed down into three large hooks. After a few seconds, I realized that the large pieces of rubber-like material lying on the floor were actually attached to its arms.

  “It flies,” I said as the acid in my stomach was now burning the inside of my throat.

  Camouflage and it flies. This can’t get any worse.

  “Yes, it flies,” Danel said.

  Aaron grabbed one of the three flaps attached to its arm, inspecting it. He pulled out one arm across the floor of the small room.

  “That’s a fifteen-foot span,” he said, looking at me. There were no bone-like structures within the flaps or between them. It appeared that the flaps could be brought together or spread apart for maneuvering capabilities.

  “We didn’t find any reproductive organs at all. So either they left their mates behind, or they are part of a hive colony, or it’s possible they form reproductive organs in time of need,” Collin said.

  I could feel myself losing control. I staggered back another step, grabbing the doorjamb to steady myself.

  Aaron inspected a few more parts of the creature, walked around it once and then paused, looking at Collin.

  “It’s a killing machine,” he said.

  Aaron looked at me and then back at the dead monster.

  “Kye, you find Jessica and bring her to me now.” Aaron was serious and stern and furious.

  “Wait!” I said, handing her the kennel.

  “After you find her, can you put him in your quarters, please?”

  Kye bolted out the door with Zero.

  I turned back around and looked at the thing that killed Richie, Brian, Lolita and Marie. There was no mistaking that the perfect slash to the back of his head was made by the sharp hooks of this thing. This killed Richie and I couldn’t even possibly imagine what Richie was thinking when this thing approached him. My heart sank into a bitter, dark hole.

  “You knew what murdered Richie and never said a word.” I said, glaring at Danel. I knew he was the only reason Kye hadn’t said anything, but he didn’t respond. Aaron and I just stood there looking at him and the distrust was evident.

  “You ordered Kye not to say anything didn’t you?”

  “I simply asked her not to mention it, until we knew how we were going to deal with the rest of them,” he said.

  Aaron gave me a look that now was not the time and I let out a deep breath and shook my head.

  “Is the surface under attack?”

  “No, it’s just us. It’s complicated.”

  “No one topside is aware of this?” I said.

  “Just us.”

  “How many are there?”

  “Twenty-four.”

  Okay, twenty-four was not thousands; it was not hundreds. Somehow, this was better, but I didn’t know how much better.

  I needed to shake the creature’s image from my head, but I kept seeing that black hook swinging down and slicing through Richie.

  “How do we get out of here? How do you move food to other stations?”

  “Everything leaves from the entrance you came in,” Danel said.

  Not the answer I wanted to hear. I looked at Aaron and he said nothing.

  “I can give you something that will help you bleed slower, coagulate faster,” Collin said.

  This was an eerie statement. I let a scowl spread across my face as I stared at him, “I might want to bleed fast.”

  He looked down for a moment.

  “You realize you’ve screwed all of us,” I said to Danel. “You should have told us about this from the start.”

  “Yes, because you’re handling it so well,” Danel finally responded.

  I walked right up to his chest and looked up at him. “You can’t handle what you don’t know about! We won’t be handling this at all!”

  I was yelling now and I didn’t realize it at first, but Aaron had his hand on my shoulder and was pulling back on me. Reluctantly, I stepped back and Aaron slid in between Danel and me.

  “Okay, so how do we kill it?”

  Collin grabbed the dead creature and flipped it over with ease, showing us the back of its skull. A motion I found to be more than unnecessary. One of its wings became pinned under its body in the process.

  “It was shot in the head three times, obliterating most of the skull, but there are still some of the contents left here,” he said, pointing to the right side of its head.

  “This one seems to be full grown. He’s six feet, nine inches, but what’s really interesting is the brain. It has three separate cavities.”

  “Do not tell me that if I shoot this thing in the head, it can still survive,” I said, not really wanting to know the answer.

  “Exactly. You must penetrate all three cavities of the skull in order to stop full function. Close range should penetrate all three… but you would have to be very close.”

  “What about a shot to the heart or lungs?”

  “There were no organs that I could identify. The insides were filled with a black liquid substance. Its skeleton is the outer shell; there was nothing solid inside of it, at least not after it was dead. Just the brain was solid.”

  “So how thick is its shell?” One more question I wasn’t sure I wanted to ask.

  Aaron went to the back of the room, grabbed a screwdriver-like instrument from a silver metal tray and violently stabbed the dead creature in the chest. The tool sunk in about four inches. Collin didn’t protest and even seemed interested in Aaron’s actions. Aaron then proceeded to do the same to the skull of the creature. He first tilted its head to the left side, where there was no damage and swung down with great force. The tool only bounced off of it, leaving a small scratch.

  “Precisely. As I was going to say, the skull has almost three times the strength as the rest of the body,” Collin said.

  “Great,” I said, with a tone drier than the Mojave.

  Aaron wiped the tool off on his pants and put it in his back pocket. Normally, Aaron almost never shut up, so his silence meant he was also scared.

  “And the military doesn’t know?”

  “They don’t show up on any radar or scans,” Collin answered.

  “So if they look like mirrors, how do you know they’re coming?”

  “We see differently than you and so do our scanners.”

  I should have expected this answer. I wanted to leave the room. I never wanted to be this close to one of these things ever again. I could tell that Aaron shared my sentiment as I turned my back to the creature and we proceeded out into the hallway. Just then, Kye had appeared from around the corner and was headed toward us.

  “Where is she?” Aaron said.

  “I couldn’t find her. I have several others looking for her.”

  Aaron seemed very concerned now, like he could predict what was going to happen. This station was huge. It could take hours for them to find everyone. Then
I heard an announcement over some kind of P.A. system. It was Lyra, telling everyone to report in via the closest com immediately.

  Kye put her hand on my shoulder and I realized that she wasn’t terrified. She wasn’t trembling and she was worried about me. I glanced at her quickly to study her expression and all it said was, I’m sorry. I noticed that Collin had followed us out into the hall and wanted to continue discussing what he discovered about the creature.

  “You should see these things move. It’s amazing. It’s as if they’re double-jointed in every joint. Their wings in full span can rotate 360 degrees.” He was starting to sound just like Aaron.

  “You do realize they are coming here to kill us, right?” I could help but put this fact in front of him.

  He immediately stopped talking.

  “Exactly how long have you been watching them?”

  “Almost a month.”

  “A month! You’ve been watching them for a month? Why didn’t you dispose of them?” Now I was pissed.

  “We’re not killers, Mr. Kagen,” Collin continued. “We needed to know why they were here and if they were violent or not.”

  “Jesus Christ, man! Violent! They have six-inch blades for hands! Did you plan on shaking it!” Collin was quiet now and I was silently enraged as we headed back to the conference room.

  CHAPTER 32

  WHEN WE GOT BACK to the conference room, everyone but Collin and I sat down. I started pacing and the image of the creature stayed with me. I could imagine it moving, the back-hooked legs flying forward, stabbing the ground and then the front-hooked wings launching it into the air.

  Collin cleared his throat to get my attention as he continued.

  “The three cavities in its head suggest many things. Could just be backup systems, but I think they have three separate functions. One does the processing, one does the communicating and the third… we’re still guessing at.”

  “Why are they coming here?” I said.

  Danel and Kye looked at each other.

  “It doesn’t matter now,” Danel said.

  “They’re coming here to take the ship. They are stranded here.”

  “So just give them the ship! You said your planet was destroyed. What do you need it for?”

  “It’s not that easy,” Danel said, “we give them the ship and they could come back here with three hundred ships of their own and destroy the Earth. To make things a little more difficult, remember that this ship is one part of a collective whole. If they launch one, they launch them all. This station and the other twelve would essentially blow twenty percent of the Earth’s crust off. Every ship is embedded in the Earth, in your glaciers, your mountains, canyons, national forests and reserves. The impact of our departure on your world would be a cataclysmic event. The device you had in your possession doesn’t just open doors. If activated, it gets all thirteen stations out of the Earth simultaneously in a matter of seconds. It was designed this way in case we didn’t have enough time to leave again. And the device can only be activated here at Station Thirteen.”

  “So we brought it back here?”

  “Yes, you did.” Danel was clearly now irritated with me. His eyes tightened into slits as he stared at me.

  “And it’s still here?”

  “We couldn’t risk losing it again. It’s still here.”

  Aaron and I brought back the only thing that would give those creatures a way out. I closed my eyes and shook my head at my own stupidity. They were trying to get the box out of town and we brought it back. I looked at Aaron and his expression mimicked mine. We couldn’t give them the ship, even if it didn’t activate all of them at once, it couldn’t happen and we both knew it.

  “It was supposed to be delivered to Station Ten, where it would’ve been well protected.” Danel now closed his eyes and sighed at the pathetic humans in front of him.

  “How do they know about this ship?”

  “Where are the other stations?” Aaron said before my question was answered.

  “How do they know where this ship is?” We had more questions than we had time, so I blurted out the most important one.

  “Shouldn’t we be leaving?”

  “These things are very fast. The surrounding terrain wouldn’t allow us to keep up any speed that would outrun them. Even if we could and my people go up to the canyon, they will be rounded up by your government and our peaceful existence will be over and eventually the other station would be found. I can’t risk it. You and Aaron are welcome to try,” Danel said.

  This was not what I wanted to hear. I wasn’t going to leave Kye and Aaron wasn’t going to leave Jessica.

  “We’ve contacted Station Ten; they are the closest. Each ship has a distinct function. We are research and provide the main food supply and they are artillery. They are on their way and will be here in an hour and a half,” Danel said.

  “Hour and a half? Those things will be here in forty minutes.”

  “I know.” His acceptance of the situation was more than I could bear.

  I remembered Kye telling me that they had no weapons here. Surely, they had something.

  “You do have some kind of weapons on this station?” I now said, not wanting to hear anything but, “of course!”

  Danel looked at Kye and Kye looked at the ground with an expression that said it all. No weapons.

  “Well, that’s great.” Defeated, I slumped back into my chair, put my face in my hands and tried to recall how many rounds I brought with me.

  “Maybe they can’t operate the ship,” Aaron said, trying to reassure me. There was a slight pause as Danel looked at Collin to answer the question. Apparently, Collin had been doing all the research on the creature.

  “You know that third part of the creature’s brain that we’re not really sure about its exact function?” Collin said.

  “Yes,” I grunted, with my face still in my hands.

  “We think they can draw images from us.”

  Maybe this was a good thing? Surely only the eldest knew how to launch and fly this thing.

  “How many on board, know how to fly this thing?”

  Aaron raised his eyebrows at me. He knew what I was thinking. Maybe there were only a couple on board that would have this information. Then there would only a couple that we would really have to worry about revealing this information should they be attacked.

  “Everyone is taught, in theory,” Kye said.

  I looked at Aaron. “Get the other gun and all the ammo we have from the suite.” He nodded his head and started running down the hall.

  I looked at Kye for a long time. We should have had more time. There was a long silence that seemed to hang in the air. Only a few minutes had passed when Aaron returned, breathing heavily, spilling our small supply of rounds and the extra gun on the table. It was a sad sight. It would never be enough, not for all of us. Aaron then started loading the extra clips for the pistol.

  “Wait a second,” Aaron said, “I thought you said you could send an electrical current through the dishes… was that true?”

  “Yes.”

  “How many amps?”

  “Around twenty thousand.”

  “Well, if they have a brain, we can fry it,” Aaron said, smiling.

  “And if that doesn’t kill them?” I said.

  “Then they’ll dig,” Danel responded.

  “How far under are we?”

  “One hundred and fifty feet, give or take a yard.”

  “How much more time does that give us?”

  “Triple the speed for digging, about maybe a half-hour.”

  So maybe we had enough time for Station Ten to reach us.

  CHAPTER 33

  WE WERE NOW HEADED to the communications center, where we could monitor every part of the ship. When we got there, it was filled with more than twenty screens much more advanced than anything I’d ever seen. Most were holographic.

  We seated ourselves at an oval black table in the center of the room. There were s
ix holographic screens in front of us. I was sitting across from Aaron and he was looking at an opposite mirror image of the screen.

  “What’s the most secure room besides this one?” Danel asked Kye.

  “The main hall doors have been repaired; they are our thickest interior doors. It can be completely sectioned off and only has one entrance,” Kye answered, as she pulled up various blueprint screens that hovered above the table’s surface.

  When she said this, I realized she was not a research assistant — she was ops. She was a topside covert. She moved fast and apparently knew more about the ship than Danel.

  “Collin, get the others together,” Danel ordered. “Don’t miss anyone. Get them all in the main hall, let them know what’s going on and don’t let them leave. Station Ten will get them out when they get here. Close the main door and destroy the control panel. Barricade the door if you can.”

  “And find Jessica!” Aaron said.

  Collin didn’t argue or question anything. He left quickly to complete his task.

  I almost forgot that Danel was in charge of everything. I wondered about how the others would feel being left unarmed in the main hall. I thought it was a bad idea.

  “Let me know when they’ve closed the doors,” he said to Kye.

  Aaron continued pushing bullets into clips and I thought about giving the pistol to Danel or Kye. Aaron was now looking a little scary, like he was contemplating the thousand different ways to kill these things in hand-to-hand combat.

  “Can you shoot that?”

  “You have no idea.”

  I put my elbows on the table and tried to think of anything else that could be done. I had the .357 in my holster and hollow points in my pocket. How many? Forty-five rounds, at best. I was hoping the hollow points would just blow the head off one of these suckers, but they were only really good with soft tissue.

  Kye was still concentrating on the schematics in front of her.

  “The doors are closed and secured,” she said.

  “I think this is a bad idea. We should all stay together. The others are completely unarmed.”

  Danel looked at Kye to answer for him again. She gave him an irritated look, but complied.